The “conflict” between Arabs and Jews is not the result of the “Zionist lobby” preventing the United States from enforcing “peace.” Left unsaid is the extent to which such a “peace” may imperil the survival of Israel, although that is a likely goal of “Zionist lobby” detractors. The “conflict” exists because, by word and deed, Palestinian Arabs have avowed as their goal the killing of all Jews. The Jews have decided they will not be killed. It will not be resolved until Palestinians stop teaching their children to hate.

WALTER SCHIMMERLING
WASHINGTON

The New York Times would not permit any other group of people on earth to be blood-libeled like this– even in a letter to the editor.

Mr. Schimmerling is entitled to his view of John Judis’s (excellent) book. He is not entitled to lie that “Palestinian Arabs have avowed as their goal the killing of all Jews.”

The Times must apologize to all its readers, especially to those who are “Palestinian Arabs,” and the newspaper should also reprimand the editor who allowed this libel to get into print.

The Blood libel allegation followed other crimes for which the Islamic medieval nations were co-complicit:

“Perhaps the widespread fear that Jews were scheming to abduct children, subjecting them to cruel rituals, even antedates the appearance of stereotypical ritual murder which seems to have originated in the 12th century. As for myself, I believe that serious consideration should be given to the possibility that this fear was largely related to the slave trade, particularly in the 9th and 10th centuries, when the Jewish role in the slave trade appears to have been preponderant.

During this period, Jewish merchants, from the cities in the valley of the Rhône, Verdun, Lione, Arles and Narbonne, in addition to Aquisgrana, the capital of the empire in the times of Louis the Pious [Louis I]; and in Germany from the centres of the valley of the Rhine, from Worms, Magonza and Magdeburg; in Bavaria and Bohemia, from Regensburg and Prague—were active in the principal markets in which slaves (women, men, eunuchs) were offered for sale, by Jews, sometimes after abducting them from their houses. From Christian Europe the human merchandise was exported to the Islamic lands of Spain, in which there was a lively market. The castration of these slaves, particularly children, raised their prices, and was no doubt a lucrative and profitable practice.”
Pasque di sangue: Ebrei d’Europa e omicidi rituali (Blood Passovers: European Jews and Ritual Murder) (Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2007), [by Israeli medievalist] Ariel Toaff

Toaff backtracked on some of his assertions, that apparently were not his own but those of others he was reporting on, when TSHF about a few years ago at the book’s release. Within a few weeks, Toaff pulled his book off the market.

“What specific assertions are you disputing or saying Toaff backtracked?”

Sorry, Thorstein, I just saw your question. He began by elaborating that his assertions had not come about from his own research but were taken from the reported findings of others, such as the trials and he went on to say that the apparent conclusions of his work were not necessarily what he personally felt about the issue. The final backtracking was his pulling all unsold copies of his book from the market within weeks of its publishing.

Getting back to the Jews and the slave trade, at the time there weren’t many other people or religions that weren’t involved so I don’t see what the big fuss was about the Jews’ involvement.

The blood libel may have its origin not so much in the slave trade as in the trade in children’s blood, which was believed to have curative and rejuvenating qualities. This was a belief that crossed the religious divide — both customers and traders might be of any religion. It might be compared with the contemporary trade in human organs (except that it was based on pure superstition). I learned of this from Toaff. (I don’t feel qualified to judge his work, but the fact that he was pressured to withdraw his book says nothing about its validity one way or the other.)

I found another interesting suggestion about a possible origin of the blood libel in a book about circumcision. The author (a Jewish author, I recall) suggested that it might originate in the horror felt by Gentile maidservants witnessing circumcisions in the homes of their Jewish employers. Indeed, circumcision was even more perilous in medieval times than it is today and often led to the child’s death, whether from bleeding or infection.

re blood libel origins: antoher contributing factor may have been the fact that medieval Christians were illiterate, and instructed about the contents of the Bible either in Latin (which they generally didn’t understand) or in pictures and icons. One of the most prominent motifs of Christian art pertaining to the OT is the Akedah, or Binding of Isaac. The narrative is lost, and all you ever see is Abraham wielding a knife, about to slaughter/sacrifice his son. Hardly surprising then that the bloodthirsty, child-murdering Jew became entrenched in the mind of the average medieval Christian.

Medieval Christian peasants and labourers were usually illiterate, and no-one tried to instruct them in Latin. Tradesmen and merchants were more likely to have basic literacy, but very little Latin. Religious instruction (as distinct from Church services) was done in the local vernacular. But the image of Abraham failing (yet again) in his basic duty as a father might have played the role you suggest.

“Religious instruction (as distinct from Church services) was done in the local vernacular.”

I had Church services in mind (Latin). Religious instruction in the local vernacular had very little to do with scripture. Both literacy and Bible translations were the result of the Protestant reformation. Luther and his fellow reformers were shocked to find that most local priests were neither interested in nor capable of (lack of Latin skills) reading the Vulgate.

By illiterate you mean that Christians were primitive, irrational and therefore wrong and readily dismissed. It is not the accused but the accuser who is to blame.

Conversely people who are literate and follow an ancient myth of creation are always moral, never subject to the excesses of religious zealotry as we can clearly infer from the current state of relations between the most moral army in the world and the illiterate, irrational Palestinians.

Except the Palestinian literacy rate is about equal to Israel.

Would Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu or an IDF soldier who patrols the West Bank by virtue of their literacy have been humane people had they lived in medieval times or would they have pushed the envelop of behavior to indulge in their own power and lust even if it crossed the moral boundaries of behavior?

Jews during the medieval period held a special and powerful position relative to the illiterate Christian serfs. They answered to the sovereign who granted special laws exempting them from local courts. Is it possible that some indulged in behavior that reflected on the entire Jewish community?

Greetings bilal a,
…slave trade….
Slave trade like capitalism is committed against ones own.
To blame only a certain ethnicity is improper.
The 200 year slave trade of Euros, even as far as Iceland by
the Moroccan Berbers or the Venetian/Turkish market of
Euros were horrendous in the mid. & renascence ages.
Euro/UK/US trade topped everything.
ziusudra

@ Antidote
It’s always insightful to read any generalities about the ye old days with the more macro generality that most people back then were illiterate. This always means you have to look at the agenda of the tiny literate back then to see which way the masses bent, and why. Today, just look to who controls the mainstream media, and what is their agenda. Big deal when the USSR folded and the oligarchs gained power, big deal now in US where the oligarchs are in power.

Obviously Mr. Schimmerling displays his hatred for Palestinians, and has taken an opportunity to spew the Israeli narrative, in a rather unprofessional way. Apologists may claim that Palestinian Arabs have avowed as their goal the killing of all Jews, but right now casualty numbers show it is the Israeli side that is inflicting the most casualties, every time,and as of this day, 18 Palestinians have been killed this year,
some by their detested fences, including a mentally ill woman.
Makes you wonder what Mr. Schimmerling is talking about, and if he realizes actions speak louder than words.

“The New York Times would not permit any other group of people on earth to be blood-libeled like this– even in a letter to the editor.”

Let’s look at this from the positive side: what other group is also allowed to form a U.S. political lobby group and not have it register as representing a foreign agent? What other group’s leaders views themselves as judge, jury and executioner when it comes to protecting the interests of a foreign State? What other group uses personal ad homenim attacks to casually smear people whose opinions they disagree with? What other group is so powerful that they can force Congress to seriously debate the benefits of the USA attacking Iran? What other group is capable of silencing the U.S. main stream corporate media from seriously debating the tactics of a foreign regime that wants to privilege one group at the expense of another? What other group threatens financial sanctions and legal prosecutions to U.S. Colleges and their students who dare attempt to openly debate the occupation policies of a foreign State? The list just goes on and on.

Given the many comments over the years on this blog, on C-SPAN’s lack of objective coverage of the I-P conflict, what do you say about this? Please not there is not one question or mention about the Israel Lobby in this discussion by two of the main supporters of free discussion in USA.

Plain rubbish. Actually, I just got myself a perfectly cute dog, and I adore her (even though her mother is rather ugly, and God knows what she’s going to look like as a adult). But granted: I can think of one particularly notorious dog lover who would NOT resent your statement. Alas, he’s just as notorious for a murderous and irrational hatred of Jews (despite plenty of denials on his part that there was anything irrational about such sentiments: all rational reactions to the actual destructive behavior of Jews as the enemy of Germany in particular, and of humanity in general)

“either produce your ‘cut and paste’ or stfu”

you’ll have to be patient. With some 6000 comments full of garbage, I have my hands full. What’s the maximum length of comments on MW, before I take the trouble?

“and, ehm… israelis are NOT A RACE!!!!!!!”

True. Neither are Palestinians. Do “Arab Israelis” count in your definition of Israelis, Taxi? Also not to be compared to “cute canines”?

Doti,
Palestinian isrealis are not israelis by choice – israelism was forced upon them by the terrorist state of israel.

And while you’re searching through the archives looking for hot antisemetic ‘evidence’, Sherlock, why don’t you go ahead and count how many Nakba deniers have visited this site, nay, CONTINUE to visit this site and spew their supremist “rubbish”.

ing ong – That’s an absurd rule. Officially this site aims at supporting Palestinian liberation, so enforcement of totally unrelated propaganda orthodoxy remains alien to its purpose, but I suppose its owner has all rights to decide to turn it into a tribune for Zionists.

Opposition to Israelis would be opposition to a national, not a racial, group. I don’t see any disparagement of all Israelis in blanket terms, particularly not of those Israeli Jews who resist the bad things going on around them at considerable cost and risk. I do see radical disagreement with Israeli policies and with Zionism, Israel’s basic ideology. That’s what it’s all about. I don’t see racism in the sense of prejudice or unfairness, such as would be apparent if disagreement with Zionism were combined with approval of another ideology of similar structure. Well, it’s hard to be certain that nothing of that kind has ever been even remotely glimpsed but I’m sure that there is no prominence on Mondoweiss of support for the idea that the full right to a share in sovereignty anywhere should be confined to those of a certain religion or ancestry and that this principle should be enforced with great violence.

The obvious defence here is something like: “we do not endorse but we merely reflect the positions in the debate”.

The problem with this position is that there are some really ugly positions in some debates, especially in ethnic conflicts, where the NYRB would never print some racist opinions of non-whites if the person holding it was non-Jewish white, but a Jewish white person can hold them and gets his or her opinion printed.

Don’t blame the New York Review of Books for the publication of this letter. This letter was published by the New York Times Book Review, a very different publication. Unlike the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review is part of the New York Times.

By the way, I’m not sure it’s sufficient to say that the opinions in the letter are those of the writer of the letter, not those of anybody on the New York Times. I know from my experiences writing letters to the New York Times that the newspaper is very selective in which letters it chooses to publish. I imagine the same is true of the New York Times Book Review

By the way, Walter Schimmerling appears to be a scientist who works for NASA. This letter would appear to deal with matters outside his field of expertise.

Wouldn’t it be a welcome novelty if NYT and other papers clearly labelled such cruft (“Palestinian Arabs have avowed as their goal the killing of all Jews”) as OPINION rather than allowing it to stand as an assertion of FACT. why, they could even do the same in their “news” reports!

Which makes me wonder if anyone ever looked into the genesis and history of this meme.

More interesting for Americans, apparently the Kings private correspondence shows that Ronald Reagan was the main force behind Iran-Contra. Of course everyone suspected that, but was there ever definitive proof considering the larger attempts to cover it up? But I have not gotten that far. …

The first person to talk about pushing Jews into the sea was David Ben Gurion. He was supposedly citing threats that had been made by Arabs, but no record exists of such a threat before it came out of Ben Gurion’s own mouth. In other words Ben Gurion was a big fat liar and who cynically concocted the story in order to drive Jews into a frenzy of existential terror so that they could be easily manipulated.

“The first person to talk about pushing Jews into the sea was David Ben Gurion. ”

Most probably correct and for the vile reason you described, unverified, as everything about this person was vile. But it has to be said that some Arabs picked up on it and it did become a common term that went out of style only after the humiliating beating of 1967. It’s regrettable that Jews still use it at the drop of a hat even though they are fully aware that this could never happen especially in light of their running out of Arab spooks. Of today’s 21 member states in the AL, there are more states amiable to Israel than there are ones hostile to it. Actually, there are only 2 states out of the 21 that are still actively hostile to it but to listen to Israelis, you’d never believe it.

thanks, unverified, (hmm? English living in Belgium, Bruxelles accidentally?) no doubt it must ultimately be Ben Gurion.

I vaguely, remember scotched eggs, by the way from my times in Britain, but I did not develop a specific dislike. Strictly British sausages are far worse, if you ask me. ;) Welcome, I noticed you elsewhere. Hostage, by the way after a while managed to resolve his issue with a similar unverified string in his commenter profile. But in his case it was the other way round. His aka worked only the profile showed a similar profile string to yours now.

But back to Ben Gurion. Would there be a reliable biography that is not simply a hagiography? Don’t bother to answer, since now I return to several hundred more pages on Hussein bin Talal from Nigel Ashton’s, final chapters to Avi Shlaim’s much longer book. Interesting to look at the larger context.

LeaNder, you said ” he never believed the Arab propaganda to resolve the Palestinian problem by driving the Arabs into the sea.”

Small typo, you meant to say “jews into the sea” rather than “Arabs into the sea”. The phrase would have been more correct as ” he never believed in the Arab propaganda to resolve the Palestinian problem by driving the Jews into the sea since the Hashemites have had an amicable history with the Zionists dating back to 1919 that would have given the Zios all of Palestine. Later there were the pre-1948 talks of sharing in the spoils of an about to be fractured Palestine and the alleged forewarning preceding the 73 war. On the day of the signing of the peace agreement, the king announced on CNN that he had been secretly meeting with his great friend Rabin at Rabin’s ranch or in London for 10 years. Rabin at the time appeared embarrassed at the revelation. Another perspective about the story of 1973:

Walid, when I am reading and only checking on news here, I strictly should refrain from writing comments here or responding to anyone. Apparently this needs more focus than I am able to at that point in time. In any case, this was again one of my famous mental shortcuts my friends know. They have a phrase for it.

Here a slightly longer citation, my insertion via square bracket:

Israel was a fact on the map of the region as far as Hussein was concerned [reign: 1953-1999]; he never believed the Arab propaganda about driving the Arabs into the sea. But he was too well aware of Israel’s military strength, and he consistently sought to establish a relationship which would ward off potentially damaging Israeli reprisal raids against Jordan. Over the years, Hussein’s perception of the character of the Israeli threat changed.

Strictly, Walid, what I would like to better understand is how “Arab” justified fears, as it appears now, above called ‘propaganda’ could turn into hasbara basics. And to understand this better I need more knowledge about the larger Arab context than I have.

Remember, I once told you that Avi Shlaims book on Jordan are on my reading list. Lately I decided to slip in Nigel’s book first. Hoping it will establish a basis for Shlaim’s. Whom I like a lot.

Mr. Schimmerling is echoing Sheldon Adelson, who was quoted in the NYT as saying, “How do you recognize a partner for peace when all they want to do is kill you and your people?” Next week, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Scott Walker will be courting Mr. Adelson.

I too could not help noticing the extreme hatred of Palestinians, indicated in the letter to the editor (NYT Books).
And, of course, what utter nonsense (that the Palestinians want “to kill” all the Jews).

by word and deed, Palestinian Arabs have avowed as their goal the killing of all Jews.

I think it is important to understand where this is coming from. If you asked the letter writer how he knows this, no doubt he’d point to the fact that the Palestinian Arabs (the ones in the occupied territories) freely voted for Hamas in their most recent election, and he’d echo what people like Michael Oren have been saying:

“The [Hamas] charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the destruction of the Jewish people worldwide … It’s a genocidal charter. It’s not just in writing; Hamas acts on it.”

Where does the Hamas charter call for destruction of the Jewish people worldwide? The document is here:http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
It does refer to “Our struggle against the Jews” and “the fight with the warmongering Jews”, but the part that is claimed to call for killing of all Jews worldwide is in Article 7:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

Of course, Michael Oren et al. don’t quote the part of Article 31 that says:

Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Past and present history are the best witness to that.

I think that the inspiration of the Schimmerling quote is Naftali Bennett.

A new idea arrived a few days ago. Jews would live and remain in their homes, but under Palestinian sovereignty. I repeat: Jews would live and remain in place but under Palestinian sovereignty. So I’ll make it simple for you: It won’t happen. It won’t happen and it can’t happen.

Do you know why Jews cannot live under Palestinian sovereignty? Why can’t Palestinians govern Israelis? Because they will kill them. How do I know that? How do I know? Because it has already happened.

The reviews showed one per book title. In that I don’t think having Mr Schimmerling’s was unfair. But surely his wasn’t the only one that was opposed to Judis’ premise. Schimmerling clearly is a racist by all definitions, is out and proud about it. It is a great pity that we have come to a point in western society where there are certain groups we are free to libel bu not others. True inequality, not to mention defamation.

It is considered acceptable in America to say whatever horrible things you want to say about Palestinians or Arabs because they’re considered, to some extent, subhuman by the political establishment, and, in large measure, due to the influence of Israel’s friends in America. If one said the same kind of thing about Jews, it would NOT be printed. This fellow has the nerve to talk about Arabs and genocide when Israel has a history of having ethnic cleansed 700,000 people only in 1948, and, since 1967, it has destroyed over 27,000 homes in the West Bank. It’s very much the pot calling the kettle black. Certain Israelis and their Zionist forces will talk about genocide and live in some alternative universe where no homes belonging to innocent Palestinians are destroyed, and that Israel follows international law, but the UN is irrelevant. On what basis do they base international law and their sense of morality I remember a former of Bosnia talking about how we need to all have a moral compass pointing to justice. So many of Israel’s friends are pointing their compass in the direction from which extreme Serbian nationalism came from. It’s the same kidn of thing, the same kind of dark hatred. The Serbians demonized the much weaker Bosnians, as well.

As I wrote elsewhere, the writer is referring to Palestinian Arabs as a political group, not as individuals. Writing that Palestinian Arabs are out to kill Jews is no different than writing that Jewish Israelis are out to kill Palestinians. If you hold that the former is racist, you must hold that the latter is racist.

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